This topic is about replacing the chassis on a 1965 Ford F100 and swapping it with a 1996 Buick Roadmaster, this is a complete chassis swap including drive train and electrical, basically a body swap, keywords...... Ford F-100, Roadmaster, Chassis, Swap, Crown Vic, I'm adding this text to help with SEO (search engine optimization) so the thread - topic is more easily found from a google search.

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Here we go.....

To start out if you haven't been following my other thread here's a link to it......

So like I said in the other thread my wife wanted a slick, yes this is going to be another complete CV frame swap just like the unibody , we have been looking for another uni or SWB truck for a couple months, and they are getting harder and harder to find something that isn't just a pile of crap that the seller wants $3k and up for. Like the uni build we will be setting a budget and a loose time frame to finish this truck, looking around we finally found a '65 SWB style side truck that was a couple hours away, the truck looked good enough in the pictures but we had the seller send more of a couple areas we wanted more than a general view of.

An interesting side note is that the seller was a young guy I'd say in his 30's that travels all over the country buying trucks then brings them back home and parts them out selling the parts on the internet or locally, the truck we bought came from the east coast and doesn't appear to have seen a lot of road salt in its life, not that there are not issues but compared to the '62 uni this truck is in very good shape for its age. He listed it as a whole truck for that reason.....too good to part out.

Of course we paid more for this truck but if you look at it from a cost to build point of view and start adding up the sheet metal we had to replace in the uni that is still good on this truck like the inner fenders, core support (will need some repair I think), rockers, door sills (area where the '62 has a step up inside), door hinge pockets, etc , it becomes a wash price-wise bringing the cost down close to what we had invested in the uni when the sheet metal was completed on it.

It's not that the truck doesn't have issues, it will at the least need a drivers floor pan, the rear of the cab behind the bed around the corner from the cab corner is rotted (will get cut and reshaped to fit the CV frame), the floor bracing mid cab is rotted (gets cut out for the CV frame swap), but both of the front cab mounts are intact and probably usable if they fall close to the right location. There are other issues that I'm sure will be uncovered as we tear the truck down and I'll probably replace the passenger cab floor pan since it's pitted pretty good, the lower hinge pocket on the passenger side has to be repaired, but the rest of the truck is really solid making it a good find IMHO.

The '65 will need a windshield it's cracked, but the rest of the glass is in good shape, I will have to remove the rear glass and replace the gasket while doing the body work, of course all the door stuff will have to be done because it's all original and shot, the truck was originally green and someone spray bombed the interior black, it's a real bad job so the dash will have to be sanded and repainted.

Someone who didn't really have full function of their brain cut holes in the doors for speakers, but I guess decided the removable door panel would be too easy and cut the actual door including the interior bracing so it'll get speakers back in that hole, I guess the upside to that is it will provide access to install the power window switch in the door in a good location...lol

The VIN for the truck shows it's a 1965 but I was told the grill is a '66, the dog house on the truck along with the tail gate are white under the gray primer but cab and bed are the factory green....this is going to cause us to give a lot of thought to the exterior since we again want a patina truck that doesn't have a 10k paint job on it, but it also at the same time opens up a lot of options we didn't easily have on the uni by keeping the blue paint on it. (you'll see later)

The '65 appears to have been someone's project that was abandoned, it does have a running 302 in it that I know nothing about, but a shot of carb cleaner and it fired right off, newer wheels (tires are shot), and working brakes, 3 speed floor shifter, all of which will be for sale or trade shortly along with the chassis either complete or parted out. Because it was a project there are things missing off the truck, no interior rear view mirror, no sun visors, no external mirrors, fender emblems, radiator, antenna, are also missing....but still a good solid body to start off with.

We also have a lot of the materials left over from the uni to fabricate the mounts so that will help the cost too, it is going to give me a opportunity to switch out the seat in the uni for something else, along with the steering wheel in my truck, since she like both of them and I can do the proper mock up on her truck to see what length column to use in it with the parts we have, like I said before she's 4'11" so we need to consider a lot of things we didn't in my truck.

It will wind up being a similar build to the uni but we haven't located another CV yet so hopefully we can find another one around the same age '98-'02 that doesn't have 200k on the clock and is worth the effort of doing the body swap....we'll see how that goes people are getting wise to the usefulness of the panther chassis and that is driving the price up quickly. We do still own the '94 CV we originally bought for the uni but I really don't want to use it, it needs some work and while a dependable car I'd much rather have another P71 since I'll be reusing the CV electrical harness again and pretty well have that figured out what to do and not to do, and there are other advantages of the newer chassis that the older ones don't have.

So there you go hope you'all enjoy the build.

Jon

Last edited by Blanger on December 19, 2017, 7:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

I also noted that you are following Ryanjay 11's build thread as well. Yours and his are the two that I am following intently. I almost sold my '64 earlier this month...but I've decided to keep it and crown vic it this upcoming year.Mine....

I also noted that you are following Ryanjay 11's build thread as well. Yours and his are the two that I am following intently. I almost sold my '64 earlier this month...but I've decided to keep it and crown vic it this upcoming year.Mine....

Steve,

I'm probably highly biased but if you love your '64 in my opinion there is nothing better you could do to make it a joy to drive and super reliable, your truck looks great and would be super slick on a CV chassis....

A short story: we have a friend that has a all original '66 slick (I believe that's the year), this is a very nice truck with I think 60k on it, it has been repainted (factory original color) and very well maintained, anyway super nice original truck basically, he decided to sell it has had a lot of people interested in it, but he told me everyone that looked at it wants his body on a modern chassis. He mentioned to me that driving his truck while of course fun is dangerous around modern cars (something I already knew, but was interesting hearing it from another owner), he talked about the trouble parking it, turning it, pulling out in traffic, and stopping. As far as I know it's still for sale and I know he has lowered the price at least once.

My point in telling you this story I think you get right off the bat, unless you build a truck like Ryan has that reuses the original frame but is updated to modern suspension, brakes, and steering along with the power plant and transmission your IMHO opinion just cutting corners ( I mean no offense to anyone), sure there are lots of ways to build a slick, lots of levels or modifications you can do to make it safer and more reliable in 2017, and it is up to the owner and their wants, needs, and budget they can afford. I look at Ryan's truck and I understand completely what and why he did what he has done, his truck is being built for multi-perposes along with the ability to be driven daily, it's a super slick build that he has done excellent work on, and if I was a younger guy I'd probably follow his lead or build a whole new chassis to build the truck on, but I'm a old fart and at this point in my life I like to take the easier road.

Having said that for me the easiest and quickest way to check all the boxes or meet all the goals is with a CV frame swap, I get everything I want in one shot, if I can believe what the guy with the '66 told me about trying to sell his truck doing a CV swap will actually make the truck more sell-able in the future, there are lots of advantages that are probably unseen to most folks like the cheapest license plates (in our state), highly reduced insurance rates because it's a old vehicle, along with it looking really cool, in a world (or highway) full of shit-boxes that all look the same a slick on a CV chassis stands out and performs just as well as anything new that people are spending ridiculous amounts of money to own, drive, then sell off at a huge financial hit when they are tired of it. If you really stop and think about it a buying a new car or truck is about the most irresponsible thing you can do with your money, yes it is a asset, but it is a depreciating asset everyday you own it it is worth less and less, unless your rich there really isn't a break over point where you owe less than it's worth at any point until it's paid for which most modern vehicles at that stage are pretty well wore the hell out... lol

Planned obsolescence is the term, all I'm doing is forgoing all the plush creature comforts that a new car offers, building something that provides me with everything I need and being satisfied not driving what everyone else chooses to drive, if you live in a world where it's important to keep up with what your neighbors have or are doing then this isn't right for you, you'll never be satisfied having a slick as anything but a old truck that you work on or drive occasionally...a novelty or just a project to occupy your time. There is also the element of pride in knowing every nut, bolt, and wiring connection in the thing your driving because you built it which I really like, it is like when I owned a race car if there was a problem I generally knew exactly where to look to find what I had screwed up...lol

Sorry for the wall of words.... if you go down this path with your truck and need help or advice just ask I'll be glad to help.

It came off a Craig's List ad for Western Kentucky, but the truck has a North Carolina sticker in the window from 2001 so it was inspected then in that state, the seller told me he bought it on the east coast, he has one of those 5th wheel trailers you see that can haul 3 cars on and said he travels around buying older vehicles mostly trucks since the market for them is pretty good right now.

I'm really surprised at the shape of the inner fenders, they have surface rust on the top and bottom sides, but no rot or major pitting that I can see, of course still have to pull the truck apart to get the total picture. It's kinda' neat seeing the evolution of these trucks and what Ford changed over the years while still keeping basically the same exterior sheet metal like these inner fenders, it's pretty easy to see the changes and how they were trying to improve them and solve problems that the earlier trucks had. The differences between the '62 and '65 are subtle to the casual eye but looking deeper you can see differences Ford made.

Like the heater box, on the '62 to change out the blower motor you have to pull the box off the firewall, on the '65 they moved the motor around to the interior side removing the bump-out in the firewall for clearance and making it a couple minuet job to change it.

Check this out....

I'd guess the slick has a pretty good drive line vibration.... lol

It's also interesting how Ford tried to keep the body lines of the older trucks like around the wheel openings and incorporated it into the newer style, I'd guess that allowed them to continue to use the styling of the front fenders wheel openings and make it look cohesive, of course we all know about the wrong bed fiasco and how those trucks look so out of place.

My point in telling you this story I think you get right off the bat, unless you build a truck like Ryan has that reuses the original frame but is updated to modern suspension, brakes, and steering along with the power plant and transmission your IMHO opinion just cutting corners ( I mean no offense to anyone), sure there are lots of ways to build a slick, lots of levels or modifications you can do to make it safer and more reliable in 2017, and it is up to the owner and their wants, needs, and budget they can afford. I look at Ryan's truck and I understand completely what and why he did what he has done, his truck is being built for multi-perposes along with the ability to be driven daily, it's a super slick build that he has done excellent work on, and if I was a younger guy I'd probably follow his lead or build a whole new chassis to build the truck on, but I'm a old fart and at this point in my life I like to take the easier road.

Wow! Thanks for the kind words! I'm impressed with the amount of work you have put into your frame swaps. I don't think anyone in their right mind would consider that to be a shortcut by any means.

You are spot on with the comment about driving around modern cars. Steel dash, mediocre brakes, piss poor handling and no seat belts in a world where people are glued to their phones won't end well. Loud exhaust actually helps quite a bit to wake up the people around you.

I'm glad to see another truck that is going to end up back on the road. I'll be following your build.

Wow! Thanks for the kind words! I'm impressed with the amount of work you have put into your frame swaps. I don't think anyone in their right mind would consider that to be a shortcut by any means.

Ryan,

You did all the work, I'm just being observant from the perspective of someone who knows what it takes to install and adjust (properly) a 4 link suspension along with a lot of the other mods you have done, none of it is easy, it all takes lots of time to get it all function correctly (and safely). My shortcut or cutting corners method just eliminates most of that fabrication by using a ready to run chassis that is already been proven to track right and handle well. Actually I think doing the '65 will be more difficult than the uni was simply because of there being two pieces to mount and line up the body lines on, the uni was easy just find your ride height, build the rear cab mount that replaced the torque box, build the front cab mounts, then the rear at the tailgate, as long as you keep the core support in the general area that gives you some adjustment up and down, side to side it all worked out, the cab and box will require me to be more precise so everything lines up and looks good.

The uni body and sheet metal was (is) in such bad shape that it really didn't matter if gaps were wide as long as the body lines flowed and looked good from 10' then I was ok with it, the '65 although we want a similar truck in the end appearance-wise it is so much better than the uni and has a lot more potential to be a nice truck so some things will be done differently, you know the second time you do something you have a much better plan than the first, it's quicker in some aspects because you learned the first time what didn't work or was a mistake. Knowing what I know now from the uni will make the '65 a much better, nicer truck, remember this is my wife's truck so I'll want to do as good of a job as I'm capable of doing so I don't have to do things over...lol

She will have all the input into what she wants, and will invest probably just as many hours in her truck as I will, I'm sure she has a vision of what the end result she wants or we wouldn't be doing this at all, there are things about the uni that work for me but won't for her because of her small size and we'll incorporate all the things she likes from the uni into her truck so it's comfortable for her to drive, and I'm sure there will be lots of things we do differently just because after driving the uni for 2 months everyday I notice things I would do either differently or a better way.

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To anyone reading this don't think I'm the type of person who thinks "my way" is the only correct way, I'm not that type of person, I can appreciate a fully restored factory correct slick, I could even enjoy owning and driving one, it's just that living in a city where 99% of my driving is street level stop light to stop light on a daily basis a bone stock slick just wouldn't be my choice as a daily driver, everyone is different, lives in different areas, and has different conditions, if you daily drive your stock slick I applaud you for doing what you want and like, just don't think that I'm being critical of what you are doing because I'm not, I'm merely stating my opinion of what will or will not work for me in my scenario.

I'm glad to see another truck that is going to end up back on the road. I'll be following your build.

Thank you, the first of many questions I'm sure I'll have since you have a '65 is..... back up lights, does your truck have them?, if you have or get a chance could you post a picture of your tail light lenses, if you have one of the actual light fixture would be a handy picture also. (no rush or hurry I'm a long way off from needing the info)

The reason I'm asking is that our '65 had lenses that have a place for a back up light (clear portion at the bottom) but when I removed them the fixtures only have one bulb and is actually flat in the area where the backup light would be, I'm guessing these are off of a newer slick and didn't think to look at the lens to see if it has a date code on it. I'm going to be running into the same tail light issues on the '65 as I did on the uni when using the P71 wiring harness so I'm trying to map out a plan.

Saturday we spent most of the day removing the dog house from the '65 I don't really mind this work but thank God for WD40, air tools, impact screwdrivers, and plasma cutter...lol

Took 4 or 5 hours to get the front end apart, not a single caged nut like the '62 had every bolt holding the sheet metal together had a nut and washer on the backside except at the firewall, only broke 3 bolts off using a air ratchet and backup wrench so every one was a pain to get apart even with a good soaking of PB blaster and WD 40..lol

Although the core support has a little more rot than I could see before it was apart I think for my purposes I can fix it, it's still structurally sound just rot on each side where the mounting plate ends which may or may not get cut out anyway...you'll see later.

Sunday I cut all the bed and cab bolts with the plasma cutter, then spent a hour or so building a dolly to put the bed on, we hoisted the bed off with one of those cheap harbor freight electric cable hoists I have mounted in the rafters of the shop, lifted it with ease and set it right down on the dolly.

The dolly is plenty strong enough to support the bed and work on it without it tipping. The front of the bed has typical rot that will have to be repaired.

So that just leaves the cab on the chassis, I spent the rest of Sunday removing stuff from the cab to make it lighter to lift, everything is disconnected and all I have left to do is mark the door hinges and drill a reference hole in each one so I don't have to fight lining them back up as much, then remove them, build a dolly for the cab, pluck it off with the cherry picker, and roll the chassis out the door to a new home.

The bottom of the A pillars surprised me not a lot of rot, the drivers side is really nice and the passengers just needs a little work, compared to the '62 these are really in good shape.

Inner fenders are really in good shape with no rot...

Hood is in good shape, and I'm trying to figure out what the extra holes were for, I'd guess some sort of hood ornament but the holes are pretty big and spaced like something large was mounted there.

Any ideas? I just plan to weld them closed.

Tomorrow I have a surprise and a twist to take this build..... stay tuned. lol

We originally had every intention to do this build as we stated at the beginning of the thread, but things change, we have been looking for another CV P71 to use as a basis to build the '65 on but have either turned up nothing but 200k vehicles or vehicles that are too far away, too nice to use, or really just too expensive to cut up. It's not just that we set a budget, although I really don't want to stray far from it but would go a couple thousand in the end over our budget for the right vehicle, honestly I don't want to build off a 200k vehicle that has potential issues, the chassis swap is a lot of work and having a good base to build off of is more important to me than the money, I know that in a way that sounds contradictive but we just couldn't find a P71 that was in our price range that didn't have over 200k on the clock and even these cars people think they are worth 3-4k in our market.

We could have waited, could have went to government on-line auctions, could have called in some favors, but in the end we decided to do something else.

What is that you might ask?

We decided to use a Buick Roadmaster, a 1996 Roadmaster sedan to be specific, it has the correct 115" wheelbase, it has a LT1 small block Chevy motor in it with a 4L60E overdrive automatic, the car we found had the trailer towing package so it has heavier duty transmission cooling, limited slip differential with 2.90 rear gears (yeah I know), the front and rear wheel spacing (side to side) is less than the slick by about a 1.5" so it opens up different wheel options with different offsets.

I drove the car Saturday and it runs and drives nice, it has 140k on the odometer and that looks legit by what the title says, looking under the hood everything is basically in the right place to make this swap work but there will be a lot of unknowns, we could only find one slick on a roadmaster chassis and in that swap they removed the ignition and injection so they didn't have to run a ECM but it looks like it fit fine and they were able to get a good looking stance, but electrically it's not the path I'll take, I want all the same things out of this build that we wanted out of the '62 so that means keeping the ECM, ABS, EFI and everything electronic I can.

Like the CV we used for the '62 this vehicle has non-functioning AC which will get deleted, a really bright spot though is that the fuel tank is between the frame rails and the fuel filler is out the back behind the license plate, the good thing about this is that while we will have to cut the bed floor like the '62 we won't lose very much in bed depth, it looks like only a inch or two will have to be sacrificed to get the ride height we want.

So..... this is the direction we are going, I'm hoping that it turns out good enough that it gives you folks that want to do a chassis swap another option which should be a good thing...right?

I know this is going to be pretty much uncharted territory but I'm kinda' excited to do something that not many people have tried and while doing another P71 would be easier in a lot of ways it was my first so this will just be another first, and like I said it might give people a different option...we all like options.

One of the big stumbling blocks of using this chassis is that it has VATS which is GM's anti-theft system that uses a chip in the ignition key, Ford calls theirs PATS and since we didn't use a civilian CV the P71 has it disabled in the ECM, I won't have that luxury this go-round. I've dealt with VATS in my day job for over 20 years I know it inside and out, there are really 3 or 4 ways to defeat it with the simplest being to just measure the resistance of the chip (resistor) in the key and make up a resistor stack that equals the same ohms and use it to bypass the key making it think that it always has the correct key in the ignition, the second way is to totally by pass that part of the VATS system by jumping the starter enable relay that GM hides under the dash, this will work most of the time since it's the only thing GM disables on most cars it doesn't interrupt the ignition or fuel pump. The third is to buy a bypass box that is hardwired to the ECM wiring harness, people like Painless make these boxes, the forth option is to have a programmer and just delete the VATS from the ECM (actually turn it off), I'm not sure which route I'll take but it will have to be dealt with in some fashion to make this work. (this is different than the newer GMs that have the PASS-LOCK system)

Until the body comes off I really have a lot of questions that I have no answers for, the chassis seems to be similar to the CV as far as how it's built, some of these roadmasters had air ride which I don't think ours does which may or may not be a plus or minus, we just have to get the body off to answer a lot of the questions....We will see.

This is really going over the top for the purists because they may let a slick on a CV slide because it's a Ford on a Ford, but a Ford on a GM is kinda' sacrilegious and I expect some flak from some of my friends that are dyed in the wool Ford fans, I've already had one tell me that he knew I couldn't do the same build twice without some GM influence...lol

I hope you folks are ok with this, we can learn together if this is a good swap or not, it's not that these cars are plentiful because they are not, they had pretty low production numbers, but, this is the same chassis that Caprice and Impala SS cars were built on, it's just that the roadmasters are big ugly grandma cars that happen to have that Corvette LT1 engine in them.

One other thing....

I got this idea while looking for a full frame RWD vehicles that were in the 114.5" to 116" wheel base Almost everything now-a-days is a unibody type of chassis, trucks like a S-10, Colorado or Explorer either sit too high or have their own issues either with the engine or chassis, and while you could use components from these vehicles using the entire chassis really won't work without a lot of fabrication which isn't really what I want to do .... and because my mother had one of these cars before she died, it was big and ugly but would roast the tires from a standing stop by just mashing the gas pedal, she got a speeding ticket when she was in her early eighties, and we wound up taking the car away from her (sucks to get old), after she died we sold the car and have been kicking ourselves ever since because the drive train could have been used in several different projects and it only had about 80k on the clock.

Anyway that's what is going on, I PM'd one of the mods to slightly change the thread title to more reflect what the thread will be about, hope no one is disappointed?

Edit: I forgot to mention that this chassis is also shared by the Cadillac Fleetwood at least in the early '90s there were Fleetwoods made with the LT1 engine (RWD) or the 4.9L Cadillac engine (FWD), I don't think I'd want to use one of them because of all the electrical BS associated with Cadillac cars but thought I'd mention it.

Jon

Last edited by Blanger on November 10, 2017, 9:52 am, edited 2 times in total.

Jon...I started reading your latest post....and ran and dug through my Classic Trucks magazines. Sure enough, in the October 2014 issue (it is actually on the cover) is an article on a 1960 Ford Unibody that was put on a 1996 Buick Roadmaster frame. It has been done! It can be done! I've seen pics! Although it was in a magazine (and I don't think that it was photo-shopped...lol.) The guys name was Brian Sherman from Gilbert Arizona. Maybe you can find him and ask about his truck. The article said that the truck was "initially built in 10 days by Drew Brothers Customs in Chandler, Arizona." I am watching your build intently as Crown Vic stuff has become 'gold' in my area.

Both the CV and the Roadmaster have what is called a perimeter type frame which is basically two parallel frame rails that run from front to back between the front and rear suspension right behind the rocker panels, or at the widest point of the body, I guess this adds versatility and stability to the platform. One picture I could find of the underside of the roadmaster looked a awful lot like the CV frame being totally open between the suspension (front and rear) and only having the transmission cross-member bridging the frame rails, this was really great news because like the CV it will be easy to add mounts for the cab in a good location that shouldn't interfere with anything.

In the picture on the magazine you can easily see that the wheels are set in more than a CV chassis which will help with wheel choice and the inevitable front tire rub your going to have with a lowered vehicle.

The Roadmaster we bought is mostly unmolested, it does have dual exhaust on it but I'd bet it's a DIY job (we'll see), and the cold air intake that the guy we bought it from added which will save us some money although I think the stock air box would work with the '65 inner fenders....funny the guy had to tell us several times that it had a Corvette motor in it, I played dumb and didn't have the heart to tell him it's only 260hp in this application.

If our '65 winds up looking as good as that '60 uni does I'll be very happy and so will my wife!

I'm glad to see another truck that is going to end up back on the road. I'll be following your build.

Thank you, the first of many questions I'm sure I'll have since you have a '65 is..... back up lights, does your truck have them?, if you have or get a chance could you post a picture of your tail light lenses, if you have one of the actual light fixture would be a handy picture also. (no rush or hurry I'm a long way off from needing the info)

The reason I'm asking is that our '65 had lenses that have a place for a back up light (clear portion at the bottom) but when I removed them the fixtures only have one bulb and is actually flat in the area where the backup light would be, I'm guessing these are off of a newer slick and didn't think to look at the lens to see if it has a date code on it. I'm going to be running into the same tail light issues on the '65 as I did on the uni when using the P71 wiring harness so I'm trying to map out a plan.

Thanks...

Jon

Sorry, I've been out of town for a few days. Looks like you are already off to the races.

I switched to the 67-72 lenses and housings, that have the additional space for the backup light. It sounds like you have a 67-72 lens on a 65-66 housing. If you are going to led's, you can probably just drill a hole the size of the bulb in the back and fab something up if you don't want to buy the newer housings.

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